Saturday, 14 March 2015

It was just a few months of my
marriage and it was a usual morning. The gardener had pruned the bushes, the
maids were doing their daily work, the cook was cooking the regular daal chawal. My mother in law was busy
reading books on natural remedies for various ailments, suggesting ways to cure
all kinds of diseases. It was her formula, or her way of helping others and
everyone loved her for this. I just took a round in the kitchen and sat on the
dining table, reading my daily newspaper. She was talking something.. talking to me I guess.. but I was lost.. lost in my thoughts. I wasn’t very chirpy that day. That
was the time when I had just put my online page on halt page that gives info about the city’s events. I was apprehensive about work.. what to do next
was a big question mark with no distant answer.. spending days doing nothing
anyway blows my mind. Plus, my face was full of pimples.. every person meeting
me was more concerned about face that welcomed them, which was of full of marks. You’ve
not got the eyebrow done.. Oh.. your upper lip is getting noticeable..!! how on earth is it their business, I wonder?! It’s my family who
has to see this face everyday, who are completely OK with it, and not them who
hardly meet and show the maximum concern.

Anyway, so when my mother in law
noticed that I wasn’t really present there mentally, she got a little worried and
asked me about what was going on in my mind. As I was reluctant in answering her
queries, she started enquiring if someone has said something to me in the
house, or if I've had any tiff with her son or if something is going on with my friends
(yeah, she knows my friends and the importance they have in my life!). but I had
no answer to any of the stuff she was questioning about. She first tried to
cheer me up with her stories.. stories of her youth.. her fights with her
mother in law.. her tit-bits with her husband :P, all the house politics that
every married woman encounters for the first time in the house!! All of this conversation
did relive a bit, but I wasn’t really back to the Geet mode!

She got even more worried and
then persuaded me to open up and talk my heart out! I was hesitant initially,
obviously, but eventually I started talking. It did ease out the
pain. But when she started talking, I was enthralled. It made me realize all
things that happen around us. She made me realize I was no less than anyone and
that I need not worry about what others think of me, coz that was not my
business.. but theirs :P, she made me feel good about myself..
she appreciated my page and the posts that I used to write (Yeah, she read
all the posts that I’d written!!), and made me believe that it wasn’t the end..
the path is way too long and life is full of adversities and I should not get disheartened
by such events. All these incidents will surely make me learn the valuable
lessons of life. Her words of encouragement were way beyond what I can pen
down.

It was more than happiness. Feeling
lucky was the only emotion that I was experiencing then. She is one dynamic
lady I know. Strong, yet soft from inside. I truly respect her and value her
and cherish the fact that she’s family. Whenever I sit with people and hear stories of their mother in laws and the way they bitch about them, I think
that is the only topic on which I prefer to be quiet and love to keep it that way. Literally.
Her words of wisdom, her motivational speeches always fill me up with zeal and
positivity. And I have blessed to have her in my life.